Deepak denies that HIV causes AIDS

Well, if Chopra ever had any scientific credibility, it’s now in shreds. Listen to the part of this video (laughably labeled “Two great minds question HIV/AIDS—Scam/Hoax?”) that starts at 22:15. Chopra is interviewed by Tony Robbins, wealthy lifestyle guru and “self help” author. Here’s a bit of the interchange:

Chopra: HIV may be a precipitating agent in a susceptible host. The material agent is never the cause of the disease. It may be the final factor in inducing the full-blown syndrome in somebody who’s already susceptible.

Robbins: But what made them susceptible?

Chopra: Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in.

Robbins: Could that be translated into their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs, their lifestyle?

Chopra: Absolutely. . .

It goes on and gets worse as Chopra discusses what he calls “so-called AIDS”

Let’s look at the facts. If you don’t have the virus, regardless of your interpretation of reality, you won’t get AIDS. If you do have the virus, you’re certain to get a disease that is highly likely turn into full-blown AIDS without medical treatment. I don’t know of any studies showing that an “interpretation of reality” is 100% correlated with the presence of the disease (although the presence of the virus is). So which one of these is the more likely “cause”?

I suppose that, according to Chopra, no disease is “caused” by a microbe.

Chopra is reprehensible, suggesting that you can avoid AIDS by not using condoms, but by having the right interpretation of reality. So far his quackery has been either amusing or mildly harmful. Here it becomes dangerous, as Chopra denigrates drug treatments like AZT. (As we’ve long known, the drug slows the replication of the virus, and prolongs life, but is not a “cure”.)

When both Chopra and Robbins laugh at AZT, Chopra suggests that it was promulgated by drug companies because they were interested in money. Now if that’s not a pot/kettle moment, I don’t know what is!

When I tell people I care about that the self help guru, health guru, diet guru, fitness guru, (you get the idea), that they are impressed with at the moment is a full of shit carny the typical response I get is some version of a “but if it helps some people” argument coupled with “what harm can it do?” I can now add Tony Robbins to the list of examples of what harm it can do. I remember him from about 15 – 20 years ago, but haven’t heard of him since. Deepak was already on the list.

Robbins gave a radio interview I recently heard. He talked with the host, Colin Cowherd, about all the work he’s done as a mentor and life coach with really successful people. Except it seems that all these folks were already really successful before meeting Tony Robbins. The host and callers gushed about what a great guy he was and how he had the key to success all figured out. My girlfriend and I just laughed our asses off. That man is a BSer extraordinaie.

Well, he does have at least one secret to success figured out: churn out a bunch of easy-to-produce bullshit and sell it to gullible sheeple.

I’ve always thought a great comedic sketch could be made using the premise of a self-help guru who writes books and gives presentations about becoming financially successful…by cobbling together a bunch of vague, impractical advice-bites and becoming a self-help guru!

Chopra:”Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in.”

Jerry, Deepak has accidentally offered a testable hypothesis. I think you ought to challenge him to conjure an ‘interpretation of the whole reality he’s participating in’, then have himself purposely infected with the HIV virus and, of course, he’ll be juuust fine.

The world’s leading Leading HIV/AIDS denier, Peter Duesberg, has been challenged to take an injection of blood from an HIV positive individual who does not have full blown AIDS, which he at one time agreed to do. So far, nothing but excuses from the good doctor. Apparently, he doesn’t believe in putting his money where his mouth is.

Yeah, “Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in” (‘in which they are participating’ -50 woo points for bad grammar) would be terrifically funny if he weren’t talking about AIDS patients.

Beat me to it. It would be a great irony if Deepak or Tony came down with something particularly nasty or incurable. I assume they would claim that society had affected their interpretation of reality.

What about all the other HIV-like lentiviruses? EIAV infects horses, BIV infects cattle, FIV produces feline AIDS, etc. If HIV didn’t produce AIDS, it would be the only virus in its family not to cause an immunopathology.

It is the animals faults for participating in the reality they are participating in. If nobody had told the animals the results of the tests they would not get sick.

Makes me wonder how did we ever discover HIV. What was the cause of all the AIDS deaths in the decade before we even knew what AIDS was. I remember when it was called “Gay disease”, or “Gay cancer”. Was it “gayness”? And if it was gayness, why did so many people who got blood transfusions suddenly start dying from AIDS?

Not a dumb question. What happened, was that the definition of AIDS changed drastically between 1987 (when it was defined by HIV-infection plus a list of diseases it led to) to 1993, when a couple more diseases (in children) and CD4 t-cell counts dropping below 200 (or 14%) were added to the mix. On top of that there were CD4/CD8 ratios to consider… suffice it to say, a LOT of people who were not “sick” got added to the AIDS rolls in one swell foop.

What is kind-of depressing is these “experts” talking about AZT, which really is SOOOOooo 90’s. I haven’t heard anybody say AZT in nearly 20 years. These douchebags are so far not only out of their depth, but out of date – that it’s not even funny.

An example of an HIV positive individual who does not (yet) have full blown AIDS (i.e. his immune system is still intact) is former basketball star Ervin Johnson. However, he has to take a cocktail of various drugs, one of which is AZT I believe, to maintain his current status.

Given the advance in treatments, HIV is now considered a chronic ailment which is treatable, as long as full blown AIDS hasn’t developed. However, once full blown AIDS develops, the outlook becomes becomes dimmer.

I never got back to the point… so you can have 1993-defined AIDS without having “foll-blown” AIDS. The “full-blown” bit implies your immune system is pretty much slaughtered, and you are now getting all the things that will kill you, like cyto, crypto, Kaposis, and … gulp, toxo(plasmosis) – which we joke about around here from time-to-time, as it’s in plentiful abundance in cat shit.

I realise how little I know when most of my knowledge comes from the bit in Trainspotting where the curly-haired guy dies(specifically from toxoplasmosis due to the kitten living in his flat). Thanks for your post.

Now I just finished teaching an after-school course on misleading statistics, so this can be simply interpreted as meaning a lot more people are following and are worried about Sarah Palin than Deepak due to the greater opportunity of the former to cause damage.

Chopra: “Ultimately unbounded awareness so that you realise that you are a field of all possibilities, that you have the ability to create anything. It’s really that you are the magician behind the trick, that you are creator behind the creation…”

Is this a recent interview? The way they are talking about Magic Johnson, HIV/AIDS being in the headlines everyday and that Chopra is saying stuff that should kill his career if people listened to it makes it sounds like this talk happened about 20 years ago.

Forgive me, I’m momentarily stunned by the idea of describing this interchange as “Two Great Minds etc. etc.” Can you imagine the accusations of ‘arrogance’ which a discussion between Dawkins and Harris or PZ and Jerry or any atheist and any other atheist would bring forth if they were self-designated “Great Minds?” The mind boggles.

Robbins: But what made them susceptible?

Chopra: Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in.

Robbins: Could that be translated into their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs, their lifestyle?

Chopra: Absolutely. . .

This is what Orac has labeled the Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine and what I encounter on regular basis from various proponents of (in this case) A Course in Miracles. “It’s been labeled “New Thought.” We change and create our reality with our minds.” That’s a deepity. We can come up with an interpretation which isn’t insane. They, however, don’t like doing that. Why be limited? Believe in how powerful you really are.

We give ourselves cancer by thinking the wrong things, and rid ourselves of cancer by thinking the right things. That’s because reality is only as real as we think it is. There is no cancer, there is no you, no me: it’s all the Universal Mind of Love. It is hard — very, very hard — to rid ourselves of the illusion that material reality exists. If we could only do that — !

But we are too arrogant. We rebel against Love.

I know, I know — it seems like a simple and easy thing to challenge this idea by asking them to stand in front of a speeding train and “think” it into nonexistence. But that won’t work because there’s every bit as much invented apology crap built up around this Spirituality as around the Abrahamic religions. Demands to test their belief that things stop existing when you stop believing in them are met with the same curled scorn as demands that God show Himself to you. “That’s not how it works.”

No kidding.

Part of the reason this belief gets its power is that there’s a truism under “if you think happy thoughts, you will feel happier.” Feeling better is rapidly escalated into being better, on a permanent and measurable basis. New Thought alt med is for people who want to be in control but don’t want to be controlling and therefore accountable and with a need to “defend themselves.” They are all united by how very, very sorry they feel for the shallowness of mind of those who think this way.

Exactly. This brand of “blaming the victim” follows directly from the obstinate denial that anything in the life of a believer happens by chance. You can easily rid yourself of the problem of evil by making the claim that the victims are doing it to themselves. If there is a grand judge and executioner in the sky, then all your woes come from either being tested or pissing off the judge. When you create the universe through conscious experience or similar mumbo jumbo, then obviously all your problems are because you aren’t doing it right. If happy thoughts bring you good luck and fortune, then the flip side is that negative thoughts or vibes or energy or faith brings you misfortune.

This, I believe is the cause of the lack of empathy in which these people make these statements while at the same time championing empathy and compassion. They are on auto-pilot following their own personal dogma without stopping to think, “Wait, that’s completely fucked up, why do I believe that?”

Thus the difference between a freethinker and a True Believer.

Deepak’s statements follow logically from his premises. He is merely being consistent with his narcissistic and solipsistic belief system. I wouldn’t expect anything else from a woo extremist, let alone hesitating in his dogmatic anti-materialist view of the universe to check if what he is saying isn’t completely insane or at least assuming much that he cannot know.

What Choprah lacks in compassion and empathy he makes up for with arrogance. Guru indeed!

This is what I call “the danger of dualism” because believing we are homunculi behind our eyes is what gives birth to these misguided ideas. If we accepted that is no humunculus/a then that’s a big vaccination against this virus of wrong thinking.

So, Deepakitty, the material agent of my rock-inna-sock won’t be the cause of your headache.
Man, it really does give me a headache thinking down to his level. It must be a front to extract more money from the Johns (or Janes ; I wonder what the ratio is?) that he is prostituting himself to.

Remember, this is from the mind that told us the moon only exists because we see it (or something like that). He must think the moon is like the Weeping Angels but instead of moving closer to us when we don’t look at it, the moon disappears altogether.

You may think that of his state of mind, but I’m less charitable and I think that he’s deliberately trying to make himself appealing to the maximum number of readers, in order to maximise his income.
When I accused him of prostituting himself, I was choosing my words carefully. I’ve more respect for the crack-whores of the dockside streets of Aberdeen than I do for the likes of Deepakitty. (Then again, I used to live in the docks so I’ve known more whores than there are Deepakitties.)

Thinking a bit more about this, because Christian Scientists and the like are such recognisable subcultures, we have a reasonable estimate of how many unnecessary deaths they cause- they often end up in the media.

But how many people die because they refused, or postponed, treatment on account of the influence of alternative woo? Steve Jobs jumps to mind, but I don’t think we even have statistics on them.

Sounds like Deepcrap is but one small step away from Mary Baker Eddy’s concept of MAM: “malignant animal magnetism”- after all, if you believe there really is no reality other then the mind and that the mind can influence anything, then it would logically (?) follow that this influence doesn’t stop at the surface of our skin. Couldn’t we “heal” others, at a distance, and, conversely, couldn’t there be “evil” practitioners of this discipline who seek to use this power for harm? MBE became obsessed with “MAM-attacks” on her late in life, and enlisted groups of her followers to set up psychic “defenses” to thwart it. He’s egotistical and paranoid enough that I’d think that this would have a tremendous appeal to him.

The concept of the “Evil Eye” has an ancient pedigree and is seen as popular among all the right Noble Savages. Chopra may or may not endorse it, but plenty of alties do.

One of the most common explanations for why paranormal abilities fail when they’re finally tested under proper controls is that the presence of a skeptic in the room — or even across the country — is sending ‘negative energy’ and messing with the system. This ‘observation’ has actually lead some paranormalists to believe in New Thought explanations.

It’s what Professor Stephen Law has called “Going Nuclear” — blowing up the entire physical world in order to save yourself from admitting you might have been wrong.

One of the most common explanations for why paranormal abilities fail when they’re finally tested under proper controls is that the presence of a skeptic in the room — or even across the country — is sending ‘negative energy’ and messing with the system. This ‘observation’ has actually lead some paranormalists to believe in New Thought explanations.

The TM organization has never used that as an excuse for people to fail to float during Yogic Flying demos.

In fact, this video shows scenes from the first “International Yogic Flying Competition,” held at the Indira Ghandi Indoor Sports Stadium in New Dehli before an audience of about 10,000 people. It also shows scenes of a press conference/demo given a weeks later in Washington, DC before a crowd of 100+ reporters and 32 television camera crews:

There’s no difference in “performance” by the Yogic Flyers before the more sympathetic (one assumes) audience in India, and the more skeptical (one assumes) audience of American reporters.

{for a hoot, pay attention 26 seconds in, to see a glimpse of Deepak Chopra nearly 29 years ago)

The official (more or less) explanation of the TM organization as to why only hopping is ever shown is that:

the Yogic Flyers aren’t enlightened enough;
the collective consciousness of the world doesn’t support the requisite state.

TM theory says that collective meditation has a synergistic effect on both the practitioner and their surroundings, so the obvious remedy to the above issue is to promote group meditation practice.

To that end, the TM organization promotes the creation of large groups of meditators, who will be able to meditate in a group daily, without interruption.

In India, a facility to house the required number of meditators to effect the entire world is being built, and ongoing funding for its upkeep is being sought.

In Thailand, the principal of an all-girls Buddhist boarding school has all her charges learn and practice TM. The older girls all practice the TM-Sidhis (yogic flying, etc) and the TM organization counts that as their group meditation project in Thailand, and encourages wealthy TMers to donate to the school to build classrooms, dormitories and group meditation halls. The same $700/month that pays for one person to meditate in the USA can pay for the room, board and education for 14 girls in Thailand.

In Colombia, a similar thing is happening with a Roman Catholic priest who runs 60 orphanages that serve 5,000 kids at any given time: all the younger kids practice TM, and all the older kids practice Yogic Flying, etc, in a group. The TM organization, through the David Lynch Foundation, helps them with fund-raising.

Similar deals are being struck with private schools and Indian tribes throughout Central and South America, as well as in Africa.

.

The point being that the TM organization may have an excuse for why floating doesn’t happen, but they are working hard to correct the issue.

I just watched the Law-Dawkins interview again yesterday. At least twice interlocutors pulled the ‘going nuclear’ tactic. I hadn’t thought of it in the context of people like Chopra and paranormalists and their denial of realism but you’re spot on – it’s exactly the same ‘going nuclear’ tactic used by philosophers(or rather, philosophy undergraduates)when they deploy the problem of induction as though it invalidates the entire scientific method.

…conversely, couldn’t there be “evil” practitioners of this discipline who seek to use this power for harm?

The tradition Chopra was trained in holds that the siddhis, as a spiritual practice, can’t be used that way. By theory, “attainment” of even the most preliminary aspect of a siddhi only occurs when the brain enters, or is very close to, the samadhi state. The sparse physiological research published on them supports this:

In fact, newly-trained practitioners of the TM-Sidhis are warned to not indulge in deliberate hateful thinking because, while it wouldn’t do the intended target any harm, the fact that you’re accustoming your brain to operate in a new, more “subtle” way, means that whatever negative physiological effects of deliberately encouraging anger might occur might be enhanced.

Hopefully Chopra remembers that particular teaching, but you never know. He seems to have gotten confused over the years since he stopped talking with his original teacher.

Eh, you have to be weird to be involved in TM, I agree, but Chopra was far more conservative in his rhetoric 25 years ago than he is today. The goal of the TM organization was and is to become mainstream and deal with national governments. Chopra negotiated a deal with the USSR to promote TM and Ayurveda 25 years ago, for example.

Someone on YouTube wrote this:
Thanks for sharing! two of my greatest teachers together, what a gift..﻿

I wrote this:
“I’ve never heard such a load of rubbish! These f**kwits are literally dangerous. People WILL DIE because they believe what they are hearing here. Chemotherapy kills cancer, AZT slows the replication of the HIV virus. Chopra makes his living pushing his woo on others, and his treatments are ineffectual for genuine illness,

“And when people feel better on a placebo, that doesn’t mean they are cured – more often than not the disease is still rampant in their system, the placebo has given them a false sense of well-being. Which is just what these idiots do.

“If you are sick DO NOT RELY ON THESE MEN TO CURE YOU. They cannot – they can only make you feel better about yourself, and that’s only if you BUY into their rubbish. It is a LIE that people are being told they have HIV/AIDS when they don’t. Tests aren’t perfect, but if a positive result comes up on the first test, the result is checked by a second test to see whether the first was a false positive. Only then is a diagnosis confirmed.

“If you are diagnosed with an illness, by all means get a second, or third, or fourth opinion, but make sure it’s from someone who’s qualified to give it.

“Further, it is not the fault of your own bad thoughts if you get sick, and it is not your own fault if you are unable to get well.﻿”

I admit I got a bit carried away. (How many of my comments has Jerry deleted?) I’ll be interested to see if the comment stays.

Deepak learned his spiel about disease and consciousness from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who certainly believed in the Ayurvedic perspective that disease was at least partly due to internal factors, and not just being exposed to an invading organism, However, Ayurvedic texts also advise cleanliness, avoiding direct exposure to patients, etc, for health workers, so the ancient texts were far more pragmatic than the modern spiritual interpretations suggest.

MMY also said something along those lines: as you approach full enlightenment, your health can approach perfection.

However, the old monk gave a caveat: a test of approaching full enlightenment is to be able to casually, without preparation, perform any and all of the siddhis. That is, if you can’t float around the room while in the middle of chatting with Tony Robbins, you can’t even begin to claim the kind of “oneness with the universe” where your interpretation of reality matters on the level of deciding that you’re not going to get sick and die even if infected with a deadly virus.

Put differently, if you can’t heal the sick and raise the dead, you can’t expect that merely deciding that you’re going to be health will always lead to being healthy and until you can transcend the physical laws work with the simple things, like levitation, you can’t claim more delicate influence on the material world like healing the sick by just deciding that they’re well.

Suggesting that some arbitrary non-enlightened person would be able to do so is to ignore everything his old guru ever taught, but Chopra was always interested in money, which even his autobiography admits is the case, and he’s apparently come up with ways of interpreting his spiritual tradition to maximize profits, even if the source of his spiritual practices warned against what he preaches now.

>Well “evidence-based” might be going a little too far– some people might interpret it as saying that there’s a “real” Ayurveda hidden in the texts that is more “scientific” than Chopra.

Plenty of Ayurvedic remedies work, although not was well as modern medicines. Charaka advised diabetics to exercise more, and of course, people with the kapha (generally heavy-set) body type are generally advised to exercise more than others, eat less fatty food, food with sweet, salty or sour tastes, etc:

>But I agree with the spirit that ancient physicians were more pragmatic than their modern supporters. After all, ancient people were surgeons too, and isn’t Chopra against that kind of stuff?

Dunno if Chopra is against surgery, but Shushutra wasn’t a surgeon “too,” but one of the oldest surgeons known, and his method for reconstructive surgery are still used today: loosen a flap of skin from a less-visible/important area and sew it onto the damaged area that needs reconstruction. Leave the last bit attached to the source area until the newly grafted skin is well-established in the target area.

Consider how many “modern” surgical techniques, including hygiene, must be followed for this to work reliably…

It’s not evidence-based because the Ayurvedic physicians probably didn’t use controlled experiments to see if their remedies worked. And they certainly didn’t know organic chemistry to know WHY they worked. I’m sure many Ayurvedic remedies do work, and for that matter, traditional remedies in other disciplines. But that doesn’t make the evidence-based.

But those were still the “best practices” available to physicians of the period.

As I pointed out, Ayurveda was outlawed by both teh Brits and the Dutch at a time when like as not, the practices were superior to those used int he West, and they were preserved almost entirely as a folk-tradtion for at least 20 years and it wasn’t until 1907 that an official national ayurvedic organization sprang up, which still confuses divine inspiration (which can’t be challenged by observation) with intuitive insight (which can).

But that doesn’t meant things can’t change.

Researchers are now looking at issues like whether or not the tridosha theory has any relationship to genetic and epigenetic issues. Obviosuly, at the most superficial level it should as gross phenotypes usually are genetically based, but teh question really is:

are their categories of u-pregulated/down-regulated genes that tridosha categories map to?

Even more fundamentally:

is tridosha theory consistent enough to be studied scientifically at all?

Ayurvedic “medicine” could be considered to be somewhat “evidence-based”, in a “natural selection” kind of way, in the sense that those who adopted practices that were harmful died; I’m sure that over the centuries certain techniques and “cures” were winnowed out, or withered out of existence in this manner.

Ayurvedic “medicine” could be considered to be somewhat “evidence-based”, in a “natural selection” kind of way, in the sense that those who adopted practices that were harmful died; I’m sure that over the centuries certain techniques and “cures” were winnowed out, or withered out of existence in this manner.

But that is how all medicine in all countries worked until only the last 150 years, and Ayurveda emphasized observation, “best practices,” training and experience for doctors and nurses at least 2500 years ago, so to imply it was merely “trial and error” without taking into accounts attempts at devising coherent theories to guide new practice, is simply wrong. Not only is it wrong, but it many ways, it leads you down the wrong path.

Ayurvedic theory recognized transmission of disease via direct contact, as well as by air and water, and hygiene was considered essential for all concerned, not just surgical instruments during surgery. Mindlessly giving patients traditional remedies without taking into account how they reacted was considered completely at odds with “best practices.” Etc.

it never became “scientific” in teh Western sense, at least partly because, at the time that teh scientific method was coming into its own in the West for medicine, the Brits outlawed it to ensure that British-trained doctors would be the only ones allowed to make money in India. It would be hard to argue that the brits had a better medical system available in 1833 when they pulled that trick or that the Dutch had a better system available in the 1600’s when they did the same thing in their colony in Goa. By the time a national Ayurvedic organization could be established in 1907, Ayurveda had lost any national prominence and was almost completely a folk practice with a completely religious interpretation of all the legends surrounding it. The idea that “communing with the gods” meant it was intuitive knowledge was replaced with the Western interpration that such communion meant that such intuition was beyond challenge by current observation, which was explicitly called for in the original texts and then ignored in the new, post-British India, where everything Hindu is seen through a filter devised by the British.

See this discussion of what “puja” means for how distorted the Hindu’s own religious tradition has become:

Whether or not Ayruveda can ever become sceintific in the sense of using RCTs to guide modification to theory is not something that can be answered at thsi point. The very concept of using the scientific method to explore things that are considered at least partly “spiritual” is foreign to most people, Indian OR Western.

The founder of Transcendental Meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was advocating using science to examine meditation as far back as 1959, and had to defend his attitude to his own students:

“Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith –it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable.“

That same attitude (at least) needs to be applied to Ayurveda, but if it IS, then Ayurveda can certainly become science-based, even “evidence-based” ala Cochrane’s definition -or, it might just die completely, as you suggest.

PURE “woo woo”
I’ve been watching Deepak for over 20 years now and he’s getting more and more ignorant to the point that he’s now dangerous.
Comparing the way he was 20 years ago to the way he is now all those vitamins that he sold over the years and starlight and health foods he’s been pushing over the 20 years has not done him a bit of good, listening to him over the past 20 years on various clips on YouTube it almost appears that he’s demented, I wonder what the dementia could be caused from
maybe he can try a little AZT., he claims to be a doctor I wonder if his license is any good.
This is like Elmer gantry, or the old “rev. Ernest Aingsly” Who used to have that TV show where the handicap would walk up on his stage he would put his hand on their head and then they would be able to walk and they would throw their wheelchair into the crowd, but if you looked at the Rev. real close you could see he was wearing a terrible toupee…..even as a kid I would wonder how he could cure paralysis but yet he couldn’t cure his own alopecia.
And the Reverand. never used that healing talent in a hospital.

Chopra was originally trained to be world-wide spokesman for Maharishi AYurveda, the revival of Ayurveda sponsored by TM-founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He’s basically repeating MMY’s rhetoric but without the caveat that such claims only apply to someone who is “fully enlightened.” While typically defined as “being one with the universe” or somesuch, the litmus test for being in such a state is that if you are really “one with the universe,” the universe will pay attention to what you tell it to do, so the ability to float (ala levitation) is a requisite for full enlightenment, and full enlightenment is required to be able to reliably tell the universe what to do.

Since neither Chopra nor his followers can float-on-demand, they can’t claim to be in any state more relevant than any other philosophical perspective.

Chopra ignores that part of his guru’s teachings, as you have noticed.

Since neither the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi nor his followers — nor any of his Ayurveda predecessors for that matter — have ever floated-on-demand, I think that the entire body of the guru’s teachings on being “fully enlightened” can safely be ignored.

It’s actually very mainstream yoga, but regardless, the point I was *trying* to make is that Chopra copies his former teacher’s rhetoric but leaves out the “gotcha” that would turn off his intended audience:

even if you believe in ‘the thoughts can turn into reality’ rhetoric, it’s only if you meet a very specific criterion, which none of Chopra’s fanbase meet, that his rhetoric is supposed to be valid…

Chopra leaves that criterion out when he talks to his fanbase because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t make any money because no-one likes to hear that they are NOT special and won’t be without, in the best case scenario, many decades of patient work on improving themselves.

The double-irony is that, the same perspective also says that by the time you COULD perform such miraculous things, they wouldn’t be of interest to you anyway -also something Chopra’s fanbase doesn’t want to hear.

the point I was *trying* to make is that Chopra copies his former teacher’s rhetoric but leaves out the “gotcha” that would turn off his intended audience

No, you did a great job making that point.

The double-irony is that, the same perspective also says that by the time you COULD perform such miraculous things, they wouldn’t be of interest to you anyway -also something Chopra’s fanbase doesn’t want to hear.

I think this is also a triple irony, but unnoticed because the enlightened perspective of which you speak is uninterested in acquiring a fan base which hears and understands, but disagrees.

I think this is also a triple irony, but unnoticed because the enlightened perspective of which you speak is uninterested in acquiring a fan base which hears and understands, but disagrees.

Eh, I’m not sure if “the enlightened perspective” is interested in acquiring a fan base or not (should an enlightened rock musician do typical rock musician stuff that encourages a fan base to form? why or why not?), but traditionally, it is understood that from the enlightened perspective, the world is seen as one family, and ideally family members help each other and wish each other well.

By implying that people can avoid AIDS simply by intent (or whatever it is he’s trying to say), I don’t think that Deepak is helping people. I don’t think he WANTS to hurt people and genuinely cares, but he’s ignoring an old saying about the wise don’t delude the ignorant. In this case, he (inadvertently one hopes) may be encouraging people to not see a doctor when they should because he wants to make a philosophical point that is irrelevant to the vast majority of people in a context where accepting it it without understanding the origins, can lead to death.

I’m curious. You seem to be suggesting that a sufficiently and properly spiritually enlightened person CAN indeed levitate, think cancer away, and perform other paranormal or supernatural feats — but either won’t want to do them, or won’t want to do them in front of most other people. Is this what you’re saying?

The double-irony is that, the same perspective also says that by the time you COULD perform such miraculous things, they wouldn’t be of interest to you anyway -also something Chopra’s fanbase doesn’t want to hear.

I’m curious. You seem to be suggesting that a sufficiently and properly spiritually enlightened person CAN indeed levitate, think cancer away, and perform other paranormal or supernatural feats — but either won’t want to do them, or won’t want to do them in front of most other people. Is this what you’re saying?

In theory, kinda, sorta…

The TM-Sidhis are meant to be used as an extension to meditation pratice that will enhance and stabilize the changes that take place during TM:

By the time one is fully enlightened, any need to “prove yourself” for the sake of proving yourself should have dissipated. However, even if you decline to give public demos if challenged about your alleged sage-hood, the fact that TM-Sidhis practice is done in a group means it is difficult for people to claim special status. Anyone who claims “I’m enlightened and I’m not going to demo the siddhis because that’s not what the Universe wants” still has to respond to the observation:

Hey Deepak! I was doing group yogic flying with you just yesterday and you didn’t show any signs of floating, so I’m calling ‘BS’ on your claims today.

Growth towards enlightenment is, within the TM definition, pretty much incremental. One may suddenly notice that one is enlightened, but the physiological changes that led to the state are almost certainly progressive, not instantaneous. So no-floating yesterday during group meditation, when conditions were perfect, pretty much means no floating today, during casual conversation, when conditions aren’t perfect.

I think your theoretical assumptions regarding the paranormal powers of “properly trained” sages are seriously flawed. It’s also suspiciously convenient that the conditions for demonstrating the claims are so fluid.

The TM organization merely claims that properly taught and practiced, the mental techniques that lead to such powers promote becoming enlightened.

It’s also suspiciously convenient that the conditions for demonstrating the claims are so fluid.

Ah, but did you notice the link to the first public demos of Yogic Flying nearly 29 years ago? The one before 10,000 invited guests in India, and the one before 100+ reporters and 32 TV camera crews in Washington, DC?

A few weeks later, the TM organization gave demos to the press in about 1,000 cities world-wide, all on the same weekend.

James Randi attended one such local demo and was quoted in the press as saying [paraphrasing]: They’re obviously sincere. Still goofballs, but sincere goofballs.

Every few years, the TM organization still invites the press to come and watch Yogic Flying. The intent, stated explicitly at that first demo 29 years ago, is to keep the press up-to-date as to the current state of the consciousness of the world -should anyone ever demo floating, it will be a sign that there has been a dramatic change in how enlightened the entire world is.

Why is this not called ‘Yogic bouncing’? Accuracy would lend a smidgeon of credibility.

The Yoga Sutras call it “Passage through the skies.”

The Shiva Samhita says it comes in several stages, including moving along the ground as a frog hops.

And so, in order to remind everyone of the long-term outcome (and for marketing purposes, no doubt), the old monk called it “Yogic Flying” and the first stage, “hopping like a frog” (the first stage is actually “the body warms up and shakes” but that isn’t very photogenic).

Many of his students thought it strange to insist on the naming scheme and that it was important to talk about the floating stage when no-one floated, but the old monk insisted that it was better to be upfront about everything… that way, no-one could ever accuse them of trying to hide something.

I guess he must think that the CCR5-∆32 deletion causes profound changes in the way a person perceives reality, instead of just being a cell surface receptor protein that the virus uses to gain cell entry.

This just makes me sick. It also implies that it’s the victim’s fault for having AIDS now.

I saw a video in which Leonard Mlodinow offered to give Deepak Chopra a lesson in quantum mechanics. Can someone please arrange for a physicist specializing in QM to take Chopra on in a public debate? And I don’t mean fluffy popular quantum mechanics. Dazzle him and the audience with Infinite Square Well, Free Particle, and all those examples from Griffiths and shame him when he can’t do them.

The problem with the misrepresentations is that many scientists– including physicists– are going the other way and acting like there’s nothing “different” about the quantum world at all. Bell’s Inequality from the 1980s I believe has shown that there in fact is something different.

What Chopra’s QM boils down to is the assertion that consciousness is needed for quantum measurement and that we can “alter reality” with that measurement. Even assuming that the former is true, I don’t see how it shows that we can control wave function collapse.

What Chopra’s QM boils down to is the assertion that consciousness is needed for quantum measurement and that we can “alter reality” with that measurement. Even assuming that the former is true, I don’t see how it shows that we can control wave function collapse.

Short of demoing a paranormal ability, there’s no way to conclude anything about the claims. What the people who originally taught Chopra actually claimed was that in certain, extremely unusual circumstances, such an interpretation of QM becomes the only sensible explanation for such (as yet, not-demonstrated) paranormal abilities.

How special is special? This video is the EEG of someone doing TM (the narrator’s wife, picture in red, giving the EEG demo to monks of the old guru’s monastic order) who has been practicing TM + TM Sidhis for several years. The last 5 or 6 minutes is the before/after EEG of a different person who has been on a meditation retreat, meditating 8 hours a day, 7 days a week (you can get paid $700/month to do that) for several years:

Even so, that person shown in the last 5 minutes isn’t able to float either, but you can extrapolate what the EEG of a “floater” might look like from the first part of the video and the progression shown in the last part. Of course, if anyone ever “attains” the logical end-point of the progression shown in the video and still doesn’t float, you’ll have to evoke “world consciousness” as the reason why they still can’t float.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue here. QMech is no explanation for paranormal activities. Are you arguing that we need to be agnostic about whether or not they exist? I don’t think anyone who reads this blog would agree.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue here. QMech is no explanation for paranormal activities. Are you arguing that we need to be agnostic about whether or not they exist? I don’t think anyone who reads this blog would agree.

Since you can’t disprove what hasn’t been shown, you’d have to be agnostic about it, by definition.

Should paranormal abilities ever be demonstrated, QM would certainly have to provide that explanation, but the same is true for Newtonian Mechanics: if QM couldn’t explain all of Newtonian Mechanics, QM wouldn’t be acceptable as a scientific theory that replaced Newton’s. Likewise, if paranormal phenomena are ever reliably demonstrated (“reliably,” both in the scientific sense and in the sense that James Randi or his successors acknowledge its existence, cough up the cash, and don’t issue a retraction years or decades later), then QM must provide the explanation or something new must be constructed to take its place.

I do not agree that one should be agnostic about extraordinary claims that have not been shown. If I follow you correctly, you are saying that a meditator might one day ‘float’? Really? Levitate? A state of mind might counter the gravitational pull under your rear end? Remember it is not just the ground under you that is curving space-time. Gravity from deep in the planets’ interior, thousands of miles away, is also keeping you firmly held in place. Meditation might extend that far?
Has meditation ever been able to bend a single blade of grass? We would have heard about it. Sure, meditation changes the air temperature immediately around a person, but that is easily because of changes in peripheral blood flow. Even non-meditating people do that.
Meditation changes the state of mind. That is interesting and deserving of study in its own right, but of course a state of mind (meditation) would cause a change in the state of mind.
My position here is like any response to extraordinary claims that lack a hint of positive evidence. Assume they are not true until there is a hint of positive evidence.

“Since you can’t disprove what hasn’t been shown, you’d have to be agnostic about it, by definition.”

That is simply a nonsensical apologetic. If what hasn’t been shown also violates what has been shown, then that specific “which hasn’t been shown” may be safely regarded as pernicious nonsense. For example, many years ago the military actually spent large sums of money to determine if burning pictures of missiles would destroy those missiles backwards in time (i.e. in the past). You are committing exactly the same error in reasoning here. And the name of that specific reasoning error is *terminal credulity*.

What actual evidence exists that the alleged trend of the brainwaves will converge on levitation? Exactly none, it is an unevidenced extrapolation based on nothing more that wishful thinking. As was shown long ago, you can instrument these pretend “levitators” using nothing more than a geophone on the floor and a high speed camera and determine exactly how high they will bounce (which is all that they are doing) based on Newton’s laws alone.

The idiotic levitation claim is equivalent to extrapolating from a child’s smaller and larger vertical jumps that a stronger adult (with the right mental state no less) could jump “over” the moon. Brainwave measurements or not, these levitation claims are complete bunk.

As far as the “TM organization” addressing the shortcomings of their silly claims goes, they have been peddling this nonsense for several decades and have achieved exactly zero progress. I even recall when an ad was placed in the newspapers at least 30 years ago claiming that if the square root of 1% of the world’s population would meditate then world peach would be achieved. The mathematical justification for this claim was never provided of course, since it was simply made up crap.

Chopra has learned his TM obscurantism well from the “master” himself.

@ Zetopan (I think I will just ignore the guru here. The mere lack of evidence will not move him from his faith).
I was thinking the same thing. There are specialists who study the physics of movement with force sensors, high speed cameras, etc. The can ask if these…limber gymnasts… exert a force to the ground with their legs that explains their bouncing up on cushions, and if their falling to the ground is at a speed that is 9.8 m/sec^2. Just like it appears to be.
Of course the expected mundane finding will not convince a single person who is suckered by this lame trick.

It’s an informal fallacy called the “appeal to ignorance” (there’s a fancy latin name that I can’t recall exactly). The appeal to ignorance states that if you cannot prove something wrong, it must be right. Your agnosticism is related to that.

Meditation allowing a man to levitate would violate everything we know about physics and biology. Why should a change in chemicals and connections in the brain exert a force on the body that would counter gravity? Recall that the brain is part of the body– it’s impossible for a member of a system to exert a force on the entire system, in the same way that you cannot move a car by kicking the dashboard.

Think about it. If you are hovering in the air, something must be keeping you up. What is that force? Either gravity has been miraculously canceled, or the air molecules below you are miraculously exerting some sort of normal force. Why would activity in your brain have anything to do with that? No, quantum mechanics offers NO explanation. Quantum mechanics describes odd phenomena which have a miniscule probability of occurring in macroscopic systems (miniscule is an understatement– in the entire history of the universe, such things may happen once). Quantum phenomena are a finite set, however. Quantum mechanics doesn’t mean “anything can happen.”

Sorry to break site rules Jerry but someone needs to publicly humiliate this idiot. This behavior is synonymous with anti-vaxers and the Catholic Church’s position on condom use and HIV. They all deserve a public flogging because spreading this kind of misinformation has the potential to jeopardize the lives of innocents if believed. He’s the anti-Hippocrates: “first, do harm and then make money.”

As someone who learnt about HIV in our biochem lectures, this is stupid beyond words. There is a certain HLA allele (genes which code for MHC molecules in MHC presenting immune cells) which limits the replication of the virus as the virus’ escape from the immune recognition makes it less fit, but that doesn’t mean one can suddenly change their HLA allele by thought alone (“Change to HLAB58, please change to HLAB58). It takes 5 seconds every time Deepak opens his mouth to know that he vomits bulls**t.

Also, AZT has not been given on its own since it was first introduced. Now, there are loads more antiretroviral drugs that are given in combination to limit the chance of the virus escaping the effects of the treatment through mutation. He couldn’t even bother to Google for two minutes to see how the clinical practice has changed.

Just when I think I could not possibly have any less respect for either of these two shysters. Listening to them talking about disease and antibodies was sheer torture. I knew more about biology in the 9th grade for crying out loud!!

Jerry Coyne has set himself up repeatedly to use smear tactics in order to portray me as irrational. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t go to medical school, but I did. Of course the HIV virus causes AIDS.

Coyne had to dig up a conversation from 1990 and place it in the worst possible light even to find a hint that I am an AIDS denier. Since I’ve written dozens of books, hundreds of online articles, ten peer-reviewed scientific articles, and a daily stream of tweets, wouldn’t I have mentioned AIDS denial at least once if that’s what I believed? Most deniers shout it from the rooftop.

That wasn’t the point I was making in the conversation with Tony Robbins. I chose the phrase “precipitating agent” quite deliberately.

Exposure to HIV isn’t a guarantee of acquiring it, unlike Ebola, for example, where contact of even the slightest kind with fluids from someone with Ebola can lead to infection. HIV is far more difficult to transmit. Who, then, is most liable to actually be infected? There are certain conditions, such as an open wound, even a tiny one at the gum line, where access to the bloodstream allows the virus to enter. So poor personal hygiene, such as not brushing your teeth and allowing your gums to swell and bleed, is most certainly a risk. That’s one thing I was touching upon.

In medicine a dilemma is posed by another phenomenon I had in mind, called control by the host. This is actually a pivotal issue in AIDS. By means not entirely understood, the body can avoid infection even after direct exposure to a bacterium or virus without sending white cells to destroy the invader. In experiments done with the virus for the common cold, subjects were given a dose of the virus by direct application to their nasal passage. They were exposed to frigid temperatures and drafts also, to test if these actually played a part in catching a cold. The result? Only about 1 in 8 people came down with a cold.

Control by the host is intertwined with antibodies and other forms of immunity, such as genetic resistance, but even without complete medical understanding, control by the host is quite real. In our bodies reside a host of microbes that could cause disease but don’t. In full-blown AIDS a number of typical disorders erupt, like pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), which appeared in 70% to 80% of patients before modern treatments arrived. These opportunistic infections indicate a breakdown of control by the host as well as other factors.

Any sensible physician would advise that someone stay in good general health, eat a proper diet, practice good hygiene, and get sound sleep. For me to connect such practices to HIV is hardly controversial; it’s just good general advice that may impinge of being vulnerable to opportunistic infection.

Coyne has yet, in all his attacks on me, to uncover a single instance of bad medical practice. I entertain ideas he dislikes, and his animus motivates him to turn scurrilous and intellectually dishonest. It’s a shame that he has become so irrational, and I wish I wasn’t his hobbyhorse. He has a toxic relationship to the truth. Happily, I don’t.

Since Chopra calls me “Coyne,” I will call him “Chopra,” even though he has fancy initials after his name. But note that I cannot verify that it is indeed Chopra who wrote this, since the email came from someone else at his Foundation. I will assume that he is using someone else’s email address and that this comment is from him.

I have only a brief response. First, note that Chopra said this in his earlier video:

Chopra: HIV may be a precipitating agent in a susceptible host. The material agent is never the cause of the disease. It may be the final factor in inducing the full-blown syndrome in somebody who’s already susceptible.

Robbins: But what made them susceptible?

Chopra: Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in.

Robbins: Could that be translated into their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs, their lifestyle?

Chopra: Absolutely. . .

Note carefully that he not only says that “the material agent” (he’s referring to the virus) is not the cause of AIDS, but also adds that “feelings and beliefs,” as well as lifestyle, contributes to AIDS, along with other nebulous “personal interpretation of reality”.

I assume, then, that he’s retracted his earlier statement that the virus does NOT cause AIDS. I will be prepared to concede that he has now given up his earlier views as misguided if:

1. Chopra admits that his earlier statement about the causes of AIDS was incorrect and misleading

2. That while certain lifestyle choices may reduce either the incidence of AIDS or its severity, there is no evidence that those choices include “thoughts and feelings”.

3. He retracts his earlier statement that drugs like AZT are useless in helping AIDS. There is strong evidence that AZT does indeed increase lifespan and reduce the viral load, at least for a time.

Until he does that, I remain unconvinced that he has a truly scientific view of the disease. I await your retraction, Dr. Chopra.

Finally, if he thinks that the “interpretations of reality” mean his views on positive/quantum thinking, and that these can either prevent one from getting AIDS or reduce its severity, he must provide evidence for that. It is easy to interpret his earlier interview as saying that the way you think, rather than the way you act, is critical in whether you get AIDS or how bad the disease is.

To my eye and ear, this sounds like the real McCoy. It’s Chopra. The shaping of the argument to the audience, the weaselly way he avoids addressing the specific charge. Ya, I think it’s him.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he has several emails, the better to slip and slid around the truth.

Good grief, please stop accusing everyone who disagrees with you of using “smear tactics”; it weakens your argument as does the appeal to authority. We know you went to medical school: we aren’t questioning your qualifications, we are questioning your ideas and I’m sure you agree that questioning ideas is essential to progress.

Any sensible physician would advise that someone stay in good general health, eat a proper diet, practice good hygiene, and get sound sleep. For me to connect such practices to HIV is hardly controversial; it’s just good general advice that may impinge of being vulnerable to opportunistic infection.

… Missing from the above list is the mocking of AZT as a money-making scheme and not the life-extending drug it has been shown to be. I’m sure that was just good health practice, 25 years ago.

A less cynical person than myself might be confused with the tone one takes with critics – especially thoughtful, esteemed individuals including Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and our own Professor Ceiling Cat.

I have to say that if one were really in tune with the creator of the universe, able to divine his or her factuality (if not his or her will, at least actionable wisdom) from a synthesis of modern science, an open heart to Eastern and Western esoterica, an interest in selling happiness and peace to anyone with the price of a book, DVD or lecture (not to diminish one’s generous charitable work, of course) … such a person might be more empathetic about the worldview and path of the persons being “responded to,” and indeed to respectfully integrate their considerable work into one’s consideration, and also to “respond” to criticism not with defensiveness, name-calling, mischaracterization of the others’ work and statements – and certainly not with the mischaracterization of thoughtful criticism as “attacks.”

Is the ineffable ground of being so small and fragile that it cannot bear a few reasoned words from scientists (oh! Always with their “facts” and “evidence”!)?

Is an international guru – let’s not be modest now, one is a guru (with all that word implies)! – so covetous of one’s own image and ego that one can’t rise above the will to be combative? And respond with an informed generosity of spirit?

It’s something to think about: I suspect one does more harm to his or her credibility by fighting (imagined) fire with (ad hominem) fire, than would responding as the “stardust” that one wants us all to believe we are.

Mr Chopra, a quote of yours: “It is much more beneficial to your health if you feel your way through life, than think your way through life.

To me, this is dangerous. It encourages people to make decisions on subjective rather than objective factors. It means, for example, people choose a doctor who makes them feel good personally rather than one who has a demonstrated success rate.

This is why I have a problem with your approach. Further, when your approach doesn’t work, it is the patient who is blamed. This is similar to some religions where a person is told the reason they are suffering is because their belief in god wasn’t strong enough.

Encouraging people to eat properly, meditate, live positive lives etc is all very well, but it should be used alongside traditional medicine, not instead of it. Placebos don’t cure cancer.

HIV and Ebola have a similar R0 values 1-4 and similar mode of infection through blood and close contact with an infected person. Interestingly someone who recovers from Ebola can infect someone through semen up to 7 weeks later…someone with HIV I believe is a lot longer.

No doubt Ebola kills you quicker but it isn’t really that much easier to catch than HIV.

This seems to be contrary to all the evidence and information provided by public health authorities so far. In particular, I am not sure it is correct to compare R0 values here, since as I understand the typical period of an Ebola infection is much shorter (order of weeks) than HIV (order of years). Thus, the rate of new cases generated by one Ebola infected individual would typically be much larger in the short term, since the R0 value (as I understand it) is averaged over the life of the infection.

The second important issue here is that symptoms of Ebola include massive external bleeding, vomiting, and diarrhea, all of which can potentially act as vectors. As far as I know external bleeding is not a typical symptom of HIV, and the range of possible vectors is much more limited (at least according to the literature provided by public authorities and governments: I am not an expert myself).

While I didn’t attend medical school, as an English-speaking, educated adult I am qualified to evaluate your use of language. It is plain that your choice of words is deliberate. You are a highly educated person. You know that people will hear what appeals to them. You have, in fact, built quite a brand on this premise. By using vague, dreamy ways of saying things, you leave the door open both to wishful interpretation by your followers and future disavowal when you are challenged. It is an old tactic, used by politicians and others who want to achieve some end while leaving open the possibility of agreeing with either side. Unfortunately, when you use this style of declaration to discuss serious diseases, you may unintentionally lead some to think that if they only get their idea of whole reality right they’ll eliminate risk. As a medical doctor, you should be more responsible and less concerned about maintaining your line of spiritual elixirs.

In any case, there’s ample reasonable evidence to explain these phenomena in strictly physical terms without all the woo.

From the perspective of Deepak’s original teacher, ANYTHING could be studied scientifically. There was no such thing as “woo,” only things documented before science was even possible:

“Every experience has its level of physiology, and so unbounded awareness has its own level of physiology which can be measured. Every aspect of life is integrated and connected with every other phase. When we talk of scientific measurements, it does not take away from the spiritual experience. We are not responsible for those times when spiritual experience was thought of as metaphysical. Everything is physical. Consciousness is the product of the functioning of the brain. Talking of scientific measurements is no damage to that wholeness of life which is present everywhere and which begins to be lived when the physiology is taking on a particular form. This is our understanding about spirituality: it is not on the level of faith –it is on the level of blood and bone and flesh and activity. It is measurable.”

It’s unfortunate that we can find millions of people who also went to medical school and disagree with your assertions. What possible method is there to differentiate your claims from these other equally credentialed people? If only some kind of method existed for this sort of thing.

Chopra, the fact that you attended medical school and yet continue peddle loony-toon nonsense does not subtract from your shame – it actually adds to it in the same way that a creationist with a degree in a specific field continually contradicts what they had allegedly “learned” in an effort to promote their idiot ideology.

Any good physician would place their HIV-positive patients on ARVs once the CD4 count goes below a certain value, no matter what their eating or if they get good sleep. That’s shaped by clinical reality of what happens to patients who don’t (early death) rather than magical thinking.

Perhaps your 1990 statement simply wasn’t communicated effectively.
Speaking strictly as a former English teacher offering only his constructive criticism, this, “stay in good general health, eat a proper diet, practice good hygiene, and get sound sleep.” Is much better than, “Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in.”
The first one sounds like the advice of a qualified physician, the second is vague and awkward and you left that poor old preposition hanging out there all by himself.

The intent is to emphasize a kind of advaita vedanta version of multi-personal, pantheistic solipsism, with the hidden message that there’s really only one person involved.

And you are supporting this?

I’m only pointing out the origins of his rhetoric.

Background:

In the progression towards enlightenment his teacher gave, one practices TM, which rests the mind, which rests teh brain, which allows the brain to repair/normalize the damage due to stressful experiences. The deepest point of rest during TM is samadhi and the physiological state during TM bounces along a continuum from relaxed wakefulness down to teh samadhi state and back.

Outside of meditation, the EEG of samadhi starts to become a trait and a pure sense-of-self starts to emerge as this EEG trait becomes stronger. If/when this trait becomes strong enough, the pure sense-of-self becomes permanent, present at all times, even during deep sleep (or such is your perception waking up: it’s the first “thing” noted –Iam).

The old monk called this teh first stage of enlightenment, but also pointed out that it was ‘merely normal’ and that anyone, meditator or not, with a sufficiently stable nervous system raised in a sufficiently low-stress/nurturing environment, would naturally mature into it by the time they reached full adulthood.

Higher states of enlightenment are based on the existence and stability of this low-stress, pure sense-of-self state.

The highest stage of enlightenment is “unity” where one starts to perceive that the entire perceptual world, both internal (thoughts, emotions, intuitions, desires, actions, etc) and external, are all fluctuations of this pure sense-of-self

By theory, the full-blown state of Unity is where one’s decisions and desires automatically manifest as reality, but even before that ultimate state, the stability of the nervous system that arises on the way towards that state is supposed to be such that the likelihood of illness is greatly reduced.

And so, Chopra compresses all of the above with his rhetoric, leaving out the ‘tens of thousands of hours of meditation’ part, and sells books to the masses.

Since you can’t disprove what hasn’t been shown, you’d have to be agnostic about it, by definition. Should paranormal abilities ever be demonstrated, QM would certainly have to provide that explanation, but the same is true for Newtonian Mechanics: if QM couldn’t explain all of Newtonian Mechanics, QM wouldn’t be acceptable as a scientific theory […]

No, but you implied that it is possible.

It’s an informal fallacy called the “appeal to ignorance” (there’s a fancy latin name that I can’t recall exactly). The appeal to ignorance states that if you cannot prove something wrong, it must be right. Your agnosticism is related to that.

Oh, I agree that I hope that it is possible, but I was merely pointing out that until the TM org trots out people that they claim are floating, you can’t prove they are not.

As someone else pointed out (I think that this is what they were referring to), the TM organization once hired a famous sports physiologist to examine Yogic Flyers and give his expert opinion. AFter careful measurements, he concluded “no evidence of anything other than muscle power.”

Up until that point, the old monk had been assuming that even the very beginning stage of “hopping like a frog” still involved some unknown agency to get people off the ground, or at least that it could. In his defense, there ARE times when people look like they are floating during the hopping stage, due to the “Nijinsky Effect” that ballet dancers take advantage of by continuing to raise their legs after they reach the top of their leaps. This gives the illusion that the dancer has paused in mid-air. This often happens quite naturally during Yogic Flying as when someone “jumps” from lotus position, their knees tend to rise back up towards their chest and someone primed to think it is really floating WILL see floating (if it looks like floating and the technique is supposed to lead to floating, than it must be floating).

After hearing that the hopping stage of Yogic Flying only involved muscle power, his comment was “I guess ‘hopping like a frog’ really means hopping like a frog,” and modified his rhetoric slightly, so that the “sitting in the air” stage involved floating, while the “hopping like a frog” stage involved hopping (with muscles).

Since the official point of the practice has always been to promote enlightenment, the issue of just when people start to float was relatively minor, as long as the practice promotes “higher states of consciousness.” Since the EEG of Yogic FLying and related practices is very samadhi-like, that claim is easy to make. In the case of Yogic Flying specifically, you can’t measure EEG while a person is hopping, but you can measure it just before, and yes, it is still very meditation-like, up to just a few seconds before hopping starts -in fact, just before hopping starts, the EEG is most samadhi-like, in fact, more-so than the average EEG found during TM itself:

What does the above have to do with floating? Nothing, and in fact, many of the old monk’s students would have preferred that he simply describe it as a meditation practice that trains the brain to remain in a meditation-like state while moving around vigorously, but the old monk insisted that the legends were true and that eventually it would lead to the floating stage and therefore it needed to be taught, described and marketed in those terms as well.

The marketing aspect led to a lawsuit for false advertising, and after that, even though every new Yogic Flyer had always been told before learning that the “sitting in the air” stage had not been attained yet and that the purpose of doing the practice was for the sake of growth towards enlightenment anyway, the organization added a requirement: before accepted on the course, the prospective student had to write out in long-hand, sign, date and mail-in, a statement along the lines that they were aware that the practices were for the development of consciousness and that no ‘powers’ were being promised.

So yeah, I agree that the likelihood of anyone ever floating via the practice is exceedingly small, I continue to practice it, even after 30 years, because the meditation aspect DOES seem to work as advertised, and that is the whole point.

Oh, I agree that I hope that it is possible, but I was merely pointing out that until the TM org trots out people that they claim are floating, you can’t prove they are not.

“Prove”? Science generally doesn’t deal in proof, save, perhaps, for the alcohol content in the bottles behind the bar at the end of the day.

But there are all sorts of things that we can state with practically-absolute certainty, and very often without bothering to investigate claims to the contrary.

Humans levitating by the force of their willpower is a perfect example for Exhibit A for such.

If somebody claimed to have the title to the Brooklyn Bridge and be happy to sell it to you for a cool $10,000, in cash, would you feel any need to be agnostic until after you’d had a chance to investigate it thoroughly?

I should hope not.

The odds that the title and offer are both real are vastly more likely than flying yogis being authentic. Long before believing yogic claims, even if you personally witness them, you should assume that the yogi is a student not of some enlightened guru but rather of Harry Houdini — or, more precisely, somebody who’s studied his prestidigitation techniques but ignored his ethical lessons. And, even if you can rule out stagecraft as the explanation, you’ve still got lots more to wade through, especially including hallucination (perhaps drug-induced) and even more sophisticated and outlandish forms of delusion (such as a Star Trek style “holodeck” brought here from aliens).

The odds that the title and offer are both real are vastly more likely than flying yogis being authentic. Long before believing yogic claims, even if you personally witness them, you should assume that the yogi is a student not of some enlightened guru

Eh, I’ve been bit by the True Believer™ bug before with this very issue, and my oft-stated stance is:

I’ll believe that I can float when James Randi says to me:, “sommabitch, you really can float!!!” and hands me that check for $1 million.

I’ve made that attitude pretty clear clear (I thought) elsewhere that in these blog comments:

Likewise, if paranormal phenomena are ever reliably demonstrated (“reliably,” both in the scientific sense and in the sense that James Randi or his successors acknowledge its existence, cough up the cash, and don’t issue a retraction years or decades later)…

It is considered bad from to leave a hanging preposition at the end of a sentence. A bit nit-picky, I know, but we are dealing with a best-selling author here and I think that there should be a higher standard.

You make one stupid statement and once Coyne criticizes you for that, you retract it, but end up making Coyne look like the bad guy and post some eight-paragraph sob story to make up for your “mistake.” You are a fool to claim you have a better understanding of medical science than contemporaries who have actually never bought into alternative medicine when you plainly said “material agents” were not the cause of AIDs (supported by tons of scientific data) and a disservice to those that you swore to care for under the Hippocratic oath when you were an ex-physician. Well I guess that’s easy to suspect from a pseudoscientific coward such as yourself.

You know quite well he did no “digging,” as the video was just posted on YouTube last month.

“…he didn’t go to medical school, but I did.”

How is that anything but ad hominem, since nearly everyone else who went to medical school agrees with Jerry and not you?

“Any sensible physician would advise that someone stay in good general health, eat a proper diet, practice good hygiene, and get sound sleep. For me to connect such practices to HIV is hardly controversial…”

Then why didn’t you advise these, instead of “unbounded awareness?”

“…smear tactics…animus…scurrilous and intellectually dishonest…so irrational… a toxic relationship to the truth.”

You do not address his points, and your defense is completely and unprofessionally ad hominem.

–most positive HIV tests are false positives,
–Magic Johnson doesn’t really have HIV, –it “doesn’t make sense” that a hetero man could have HIV,
–AZT is a “horrible travesty” that will “destroy the immune system” so shouldn’t be taken, and
–“so-called AIDS” is not the disease victims are really suffering, and it’s all in their minds.

It will have to be assumed you haven’t retracted these.

You were CLEARLY AGREEING with Robbins’immediately preceding comment, “HIV is not the source of AIDS,” by responding:

“The material agent is never the cause of the disease… When they accept it, they make it happen.”

…which does NOT equal your apparent epiphany now that “Of course the HIV virus causes AIDS.”

“Exposure to HIV isn’t a guarantee of acquiring it, unlike Ebola, for example, where contact of even the slightest kind with fluids from someone with Ebola can lead to infection. HIV is far more difficult to transmit.”

In my opinion, what he said is the same is saying: ‘exposure with HIV can lead to infection’ or ‘contact of even the slightest kind of fluids from someone with Ebola can lead to infection’.

exposure to X CAN lead to infection = exposure to X isn’t a guarantee of aquiring it.

His arguments was not that good at all. He just said Ebola is more transmissible/infectious/contagious than HIV. The same goes for Hepatitis B virus; the rate of transmission of Hep B virus is higher than HIV’s transmission, considereing the same route of exposure. The same applies to Ebola virus; not everyone that had contact with fluids from someone infected will get the virus. Wounds, immune system etc, are variables on that. However, that has nothing to do with someone feelings, thoughts or opinions about reality.

Someone can believe what he/she wants to, but that doesn’t change the fact that condom reduces HIV transmission, and that AZT is effective. The same applies for virus transmissibility. If someone’s interpreation of reality considers that HIV is more transmissible than Ebola, that changes nothing; HIV will continue to be less transmissible.

It’s also interesting to point out this part:
“pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), which appeared in 70% to 80% of patients before modern treatments arrived”.
Well, that means that Chopra now, after the bad things he said on interview, recognizes that modern treatments IMPROVED patients outcomes in AIDS? So Why he said AZT isn’t effective? So, was it modern treatments that helped patients and not “quantum medicine” (whatever that means)? Does he recognizes that?

Now obviously there are certain populations that will be more or less susceptible to certain infections given their immune status or other physical attributes. But this is not what you are even attempting to address in your ramblings, past or present.

HIV will infect a certain proportion of people exposed period. That number will different to those exposed to HepC or influenza or measles because the basic reproduction number and minimum inoculum of each is different BASED ON ATTRIBUTES OF THE VIRUS ITSELF. (This goes for bacteria as well).

And are why “In our bodies reside a host of microbes that could cause disease but don’t.” Perhaps you don’t understand how “the body can avoid infection even after direct exposure to a bacterium or virus without sending white cells to destroy the invader.” And there is certainly more to be learned, but you seem to have forgotten some of the basic stuff we learn in medical school to help put your poor befuddled mind at ease on these topics.

For example, Clostridium difficile infections. Why is it that certain people get pseudomembranous colitis and others don’t? Without question “host factors” play into it – which is why antibiotic use is strongly associated with CDAD (clostridium difficile associated diarrhea). However, we also know what THAT principle is about to – microbiome niches and competition amongst the microbiome. This is a fantastic field of SCIENTIFIC inquiry and is also well described in the development of vaginal yeast and other infections as well.

But there is more to it than that! Because the C diff must ALSO have the VIRULENCE FACTOR – specifically exotoxin production. Which is can get from other c diff but also from other bacteria that possess it as it is an A-B toxin (remember those?).

So through all of this, and plenty more, which you seem to have no knowledge of (or at least don’t bring any to bear in the discussions at hand), there is simply no “dilemma [in medicine]… posed by another phenomenon I had in mind, called control by the host.” Because first and foremost it is about the INFECTIOUS AGENT itself.

We don’t have a “dilemma” here Chopra. Those things you are alluding to are called “risk factors” which are something that any MD should have a good handle on in order to at least approximately risk stratify the person sitting in front of you.

Referring to “…certain conditions, such as an open wound, even a tiny one at the gum line, where access to the bloodstream allows the virus to enter” is a rather silly cop out. Because that is not something that actually plays into real risk stratification as anyone can and will have “tiny wounds at the gum line” at any given time and trying to control for such things (in other words, advising your patient to do so in order to reduce risk) is a fool’s errand.

And it also has absolutely nothing to do with your original comment on the matter as “thoughts, feelings, beliefs” and “Their own interpretations of the whole reality they’re participating in” have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH IT except in the most contrived, tangential, and minimal way. Obviously if your patient has the belief that using condoms during sex is a bad thing, that will put them in a higher risk category for contracting HIV.

So you are either spouting off inanities (most likely, given your track record) or you are trying to repackage completely banal ideas into some fancy sounding ideas and passing them off as profound (well, probably equally as likely).

Stop hiding behind your credentials Chopra. As an attending of mine once said, a duck with a PhD is still a duck. The fact that you keep touting your credentials and the letters after your name only proves that the system isn’t perfect and that having letters after your name and being affiliated with prestigious institutions doesn’t guarantee that the ideas proffered are of any value at all. You are showing the world how even highly educated people can still be mislead and believe in ridiculously silly ideas.

I was going to take Deepakitty apart on this same point, but I’ll have to get a microscope and step ladder to find large enough pieces in the corners of the ceiling after your tearing apart of his thoughtlessness and disinformation.

a duck with a PhD is still a duck.

In deference to the feelings of Professor CeilingCat, this not-a-blog-site tries for feline exemplars. Unfortunately my trivial research on Wikipedia reveals feline hypnotherapists, nutritionists and the like, but no actual PhDs. Nor anatinous examplars either.

Yes, Chopra is one of the “special” people and Robbins may possibly out of his mind but…
This was basically two ego maniacs talking potential nonsense about what in reality is a wonderful and unknowable truth about the nature of our world.

It’s them, of course they talked gibberish, what else were they going to do? They’re allowed to say whatever they want. What are you? Modd Flanders? Think if the children!!
Seriously, bigger fish to fry, No?

Umm. . . have you read the Roolz? If you did, you’d know not to tell the moderator how to behave. I suggest that you hie yourself to other websites where arrogance and tone policing like yours are not only tolerated, but appreciated.

And they can say whatever they want, but I can criticize people for what they say.

There is no context in which it is a good or moral thing to tell the public that their thoughts and feeling might increase susceptibility to the disease or be the ’cause.’ Not on a wackaloon show. Not in a tweet. Not on a youtube video. None.

Bigger fish to fry? Than one of the world’s most famous and influential exponents of alternative medicine apparently denying conventional wisdom on the AIDS virus? Perhaps you don’t know this but AIDS is rather popular around the world, particularly in Africa, where millions of people can’t live without it. Or perhaps you do know this but think it really is a trifling matter.

I have a friend who died of AIDS. He was a hemophiliac and was infected from a blood transfusion. To imply that that was somehow his fault because he didn’t have the right “thoughts or feelings” is repugnant.

I’m “surprised” (ah, irony) that Chopra suggests that the Ph.D. is a “lesser” degree, or at least not in the same class as his M.D. While I’m not a fan of classifying degrees in a hierarchy, because sometimes different is simply different, the Ph.D. “technically” supersedes the M.D. because Ph.D.’s are charged with conserving, and discovering new, knowledge. Chopra seems more concerned with monetizing “knowledge,” than with conserving or expanding it.

AIDS is rather hard to catch. We know well that people can use dirty needles from HIV+ people and have unprotected sex with HIV+ people and not develop AIDS until their luck runs out. The reasons for this are thought to be various like low titer of viable virus in the body fluids of the donor at the time of transmission, dumb random luck, and ‘control by the host’. But I note that on that latter point Chopra says next to nothing about control by the host with HIV. Perhaps like me, he knows very little about that. Cold viruses are highly variable, but remember we have all caught that virus (failed to control, but then ramped up an immune response) a hundred times. Control by the host there should be significant, and so I do not think its a good analogy to exposure to HIV. I doubt that we are exposed to HIV very often so it seems reasonable, unless specifically shown otherwise, that control by the host in HIV is not one of the biggest factors.
Anyway, this new statement by Chopra does seem like backpedaling, which is good, but he can walk it back further.
The HIV virus itself brings some things to the table. There are several different strains of HIV, and some strains are less aggressive, and others much more aggressive. Getting or not getting AIDS is determined by multiple factors, and to emphasize control by the host would of course be his ‘thing’, but it is far far more complicated than that.

It does not take anything but the ability to hear and then listen to the video of Tony Robbins and Deepac Chopra and know what was said by each. It was denial of AIDS, denial of the test for HIV and if a person somehow actually did have the disease, this was so only because they gave it to themselves with a bad attitude. This is pretty disgusting stuff even if you were not an MD. I would certainly deny all of this too, even though it is right there for all to hear. It is pathetic.

What a pair of ignorant beings! This article is similar to the claims by that other idiot politician, that claimed that if a woman got raped she had the power within her own body NOT to get pregnant.
Seriously STUPID!!!!

My question would be what does Deepak Chopra consider to be the “whole reality?” I wonder if he is speaking on the “Metaphysical plane.”
Talk about denial, we do not have the brain power to tell our cells to resist being infected by an overwhelmingly smart virus that basically makes our immune system go out of business and allow for any mundane microbe that normally doesn’t effect a person not exposed to HIV to run a muck in the human body. Thank you Deepak Chopra for leading people on and feeding into the power of denial and resistive to care that can help them not feel so miserable. Hopefully people will realize he is not a Virologist or Epidemiologist. SMH unbelievable.

although I haven’t read all of the comments, I wonder if anybody has brought up Oprah yet. Seeing as how we live in one nation under Oprah now and she was and is the person who proclaimed first the joke that is mr. Chopra as a guru of sorts and then continued to finance him as part of her world domination tour, I think it would be interesting to get back to the root of the problem and ask what Oprahs intentions, desires, and responsibilities in all this is were & are…

3 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

[…] of faith-healing huckster. This garbage comes from a disturbing interview of Chopra that recently came to light. It opens with slimy self-help guru Tony Robbins saying “HIV is not the source of AIDS.” […]